Thomson Dam on the Thomson River Gippsland

The Thomson Dam is nearly full right now. Only a couple of years ago the river/gully was just a trickle along its bottom and I was contemplating a once-in-a-lifetime canoe trip along the length of the empty dam (I only wish I had!) I did hunt/hike it though; the photos I took of the stream at the bottom of the dam I could easily JUMP over (@150 metres below the surface today)! It is a large storage. Melbourne’s water usage (with the addition of over a million people since it was built) now requires additional CATCHMENT. Some weirs need to be built along streams higher up (eg the Aberfeldy, Macalister/Barkly, Moroka, Wonnangatta etc to channel some of the surplus winter flows INTO the storages so that at this time of the year they would all be FULL. (This would have been most preferable to building the useless, costly desal plant Labor required, as NO additional land would need to have been flooded) You can view eg the weirs at the Easton and Swingler’s ‘portals’ on the Upper Thomson to see what I had in mind. Interestingly, these weirs/tunnels COULD be built at NO cost if dredging for gold (and environmental restitution) was allowed (eg) along the Jordan River whose (blackberry buried) alluvial flats yet contain at least $10 BILLION worth of GOLD!

Thomson River at bottom of Thomson dam May 2010: Note ‘line’ of ‘normal’ water level on the hill in the background. It was dry for a long while’ note the growth of trees/shrubs along the bottom.